What do butterflies eat and how their life works (duration and biological cycle). Curiosities, how long does a butterfly live and what does it eat.
Let’s face it, when we think of insects we always perceive “a certain annoyance”. We imagine cockroaches, hornets, wasps… in this dense scenario, however, there is an insect that never disappoints us: the butterfly! Indeed, among all the insects, probably only butterflies and ladybugs can nourish our sympathies.
Here, after seeing what ladybugs eat , let’s see what butterflies feed on !
Butterfly life cycle:
First of all, let’s say that the butterfly goes through different stages of development and in each of these it has different aspects and behaviors. The stages of development of the butterfly are:
- Egg
- Caterpillar
- Pupa or chrysalis
- Butterfly
What does the butterfly caterpillar eat? The egg represents the first food source for the butterfly. In fact, the caterpillar, pushing itself out of the egg is very vulnerable and what remains of the egg provides it with the food necessary for survival until it reaches its host plant.
While butterflies are beautiful to look at and useful for the garden, caterpillars are less so. The caterpillar of the butterfly, in fact, feeds on plants until it grows large. When the caterpillar has reached its maximum size, it will begin to change and take on the form of a chrysalis .
The chrysalis uses the resources accumulated by the caterpillar to carry out its metamorphosis. The waste products of the chrysalis’ metabolism are released outside just before the emergence and are called “meconium”.
Here we come again to the crucial question: what do butterflies eat? The adult butterfly has a completely different lifestyle than the caterpillar. While the caterpillar lives mainly on a host plant, the butterfly spends its time fluttering around .
The caterpillar is not always harmless as everyone thinks. Some caterpillars have very bright colors but are not eaten by birds or other predators because they are toxic , the toxic substances they obtain by feeding on certain host plants.
What do butterflies eat?
After hatching, the butterfly is left with its wings folded and dangling. The butterfly is able to expand its wings by pumping hemolymph into the wing veins. This phase is very critical because if the butterfly is unable to expand its wings quickly, they harden and prevent it from flying: the wings would remain permanently deformed.
What do butterflies eat? While the caterpillar feeds on leaves, the butterfly spends its life sucking nectar from flowers and reproducing so as to lay eggs by the following autumn.
So yes, the butterfly eats flower nectar!
The largest existing butterfly is the Ornithoptera alexandrae or Queen Alexandra butterfly . This butterfly can reach a wingspan of 31 cm, a body length of 8 cm and a weight of up to 12 grams. Although the Queen Alexandra butterfly is the largest, the most popular butterfly in Italy is certainly the swallowtail butterfly . Among the various species of butterflies, the monarch butterfly is surprising for its exasperating migration .
Where butterflies live
Monarch butterflies (which live between the United States and Mexico), made known to the masses by the TV series Under the Dome, are famous for their migrations : they can migrate thousands of kilometres and can live from two weeks to eight months.
Native to Costa Rica, there are butterflies that live only two days while the Vanessa antiopa butterfly can live up to a year.
It is important to say that the question “how long does a butterfly live ” is a bit ambiguous. Because when we talk about butterflies we are referring only to the adult stage of an insect that also lives through other phases (caterpillar and chrysalis). Some butterflies, before reaching maturity, can take several years. There are cases in which the chrysalis stage can last up to 30 years before leading to the emergence of the adult. For more information on the lifespan of a butterfly I refer you to the in-depth article dedicated to how long butterflies live: how long does a butterfly live .